“Where’ll I find Reno? Hank O’Marra said he wanted to see me.”
“He does that. Know where Kid McLeod’s place is at?”
“No.”
“It’s on Martin Street above King, corner the alley. Ask for the Kid. Go back that-away three blocks, and then down. You can’t miss it.”
I said I’d try not to, and left him crouching behind his hedge, watching my client’s place, waiting, I guessed, for a shot at Pete the Finn, Whisper, or any of Reno’s other unfriends who might happen to call on old Elihu.
Following directions, I came to a soft drink and rummy establishment with red and yellow paint all over it. Inside I asked for Kid McLeod. I was taken into a back room, where a fat man with a dirty collar, a lot of gold teeth, and only one ear, admitted he was McLeod.
“Reno sent for me,” I said. “Where’ll I find him?”
“And who does that make you?” he asked.
I told him who I was. He went out without saying anything. I waited ten minutes. He brought a boy back with him, a kid of fifteen or so with a vacant expression on a pimply red face.
“Go with Sonny,” Kid McLeod told me.
I followed the boy out a side door, down two blocks of back street, across a sandy lot, through a ragged gate, and up to the back door of a frame house.
The boy knocked on the door and was asked who he was.
“Sonny, with a guy the Kid sent,” he replied.